Monthly Archives: June 2015

Rose ‘New Dawn’

We’ve been in need of rain. I don’t pay particular attention to rainfall amount for particular months but generally April and May are pretty rainy. This year, May has been on the dry side. Recently the lawn has started to look like it often does in early August. Well, the rain came today (but of course, it’s now June). One downside to the rain is that it knocks the petals off the roses. The multiflora is pretty well finished, but the ‘New Dawn’ growing beside it on the fence is just really getting started. Here’s a picture of ‘New Dawn’ with drops of rain, a la Oscar Hammerstein.

Water Droplets on Verbascum

When I went out to the car this morning the grass was fairly heavy with dew. Generally I don’t like getting my shoes all wet walking to the car but occasionally it’s worth venturing out into the grass to see what else has been covered by droplets of water. In this case, a common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) was absolutely covered with little beads of water, its velvety surface increasing it’s holding capacity. The picture isn’t actually all that good, but it’s what I have for today.

Day Lily

This is the first day lily of the year in our yard. To me, this marks the transition from spring to summer and although it’s been cool and pleasant (and rainy) the last few days, the forecast is for hot and humid tomorrow and through the weekend.

While spring flowers are relatively fleeting (except the daffodils, I suppose, which last a while, summer flowers are more enduring. Not the individual flowers, which are generally here one day and gone the next. But using day lilies as an example, they tend to bloom continually, with new flowers each day, for weeks or in some cases all summer.

Hydrangea ‘Big Smile’

A year ago (exactly a year ago, as it would happen) we bought two hydrangeas for the back yard. One was a Hydrangea paniculata and the other a variety called ‘Big Smile’. They are planted in a partly shady area of the back border and seem to be doing quite well. This is one of the large, sterile flowers on ‘Big Smile’. The buds seen at the top of the image are fertile flowers that have yet to open. They are small and fairly inconspicuous. From a distance, it is quite attractive but I also like the subtle coloration and the asymmetry of the petals in this flower.

Asiatic Lilies

After work this evening Dorothy and I went up to Olney to pick up the car from the shop. I went from there to the grocery store and it was just starting to rain as I went in. When I came out again, it was coming down pretty hard but it didn’t rain all that long. A little while after I got home, it had basically stopped and I went out back to see what would be decorated with droplets of water. These two Asiatic lilies were the obvious choice. They aren’t the first lilies to bloom this year, but they sure are the most intensely colored. I’m quite fond of these flowers.

Rambling Rose

I took something of an unexpected walk yesterday, having to drop a car off at the shop. Fortunately it was late enough in the day and I was walking on the west side of the road so I was shaded by trees most of the way. At one point there was a small patch of woods on my right and I was a little surprised to find some roses blooming at the edge. There were at least three separate plants, two with the dark pink flowers shown here with a lighter pink version in between them. I don’t know they are some old garden roses that have gone feral or if they are natural hybrids between garden roses and wild roses in the area. They certainly appear to have a bit of R. multiflora in them and there were ordinary R. multiflora growing on either side of them. They are quite double and very attractive, though. I hope to take some cuttings when the time is right. I better return and mark them in some way, though, or I’ll never figure out which are which.

Echinacea (Coneflower)

The coneflowers (Echinacea) are starting to come into bloom in our back yard. This one is opening up but hasn’t begun to get the orange colors that characterize the flowers when fully open. Each of the little rods in this flower head, forming the wonderful spirals that characterize many of this sort of flower, is actually a separate flower bud. The flowers themselves are quite small and the petals around the outside have only just started to grow in this flower head but will soon begin to turn a light purplish pink.

Asclepias Tuberosa (Butterfly Weed)

Cathy bought two new Butterfly Weed (Asclepias Tuberosa) plants last week. Generally this has orange flowers but we have one with bright yellow flowers. She wanted more of that, so that’s what the two new plants are. They were conveniently sitting on the table out on the back patio, which made my job of photographing them that much easier. Rather than lying on the ground or squatting down for a picture, I could sit in a chair. Nice. There were ants crawling all over the flowers but that didn’t bother me much. I considered posting one of the pictures that included some ants but I decided I liked this one better.

Common Daisy (Bellis perennis)

Cathy and I went over to her mom’s house after work this evening. Well, I went after work, Cathy went earlier and spent a good while there. She planted some annuals in the pots at the top of her driveway. When I got there, I didn’t actually do much except move some heavy boxes of things that she was going to take to a shredding event tomorrow. I took a few pictures around the yard, but mostly of the daisies growing near where the sidewalk meets the driveway.

Rosa setigera (Prairie Rose)

I went up to our family’s Pennsylvania property today to do some work on the brush growing on the dam. The pictures I took of that are more documentary than photographically interesting. Also, I’ll spare you the photo of the bloody gash on my arm from when I slipped and caught myself on a rose bush. When I was done, I rested a while enjoying the dragonflies that were in abundance. I tried to get some photographs but none of them really turned out, particularly those of the dragonflies on the wing. Just before I left, I took some pictures of the Rosa setigera (Prairie Rose) that I planted in April of 2005. It is fairly large and doing very well, blooming quite profusely.

Echinacea (Coneflower) (continued)

Five days ago, on the 17th of June, I posted a picture of a green coneflower (Echinacea). It was green both in terms of being not ripe and being green in color. This is the same flower, five days later, showing the more familiar colors of the flower. I like coneflowers but the petals tend to get eaten and even this flower is showing signs of insect action, with the petal on the upper right being gone.